Tag Archives: chart

This is one of a kit of three Christmas cards from Vervaco; I’m going to make two of them for my sisters. The kit came with appropriately sized 18 count aida, floss, aperture cards, and envelopes; I’m not sure if it came with a needle. This was easy enough to do; I didn’t have many problems with it except for placing the star at the top. I did make one change to the chart; the top right branch of the tree on the left had a column of two stitches across instead of one like the other branches, so I changed it to one. Because of that change, I had trouble placing the star as it was on the chart, but it wasn’t a huge problem. It doesn’t really matter exactly where the star is placed.

I’m going to do the one on the left for the other one; I don’t know how I feel about the heart, but the ornaments feel nostalgic.

I worked a lot on Vintage by Tauriel on Etsy this month. I meant to alternate working on it and 99, but I think I worked on this more; I did close to one hundred rows on this versus not quite five full bottles on 99.

This is 99 by Ink Circles. I didn’t work on it too much this month (I only did two bottles and part of a third (bottle 53)), but I’m moving it to my primary project; my sister offered to get it framed (once I finish it) as a birthday present.

I restarted Vintage by Tauriel on Etsy; this was my third try this time (I’d previously started it last year, but it didn’t work out). This time, I had a bead in the wrong place on row three (I was on row five when I noticed it) and on the second try, I had too short of a tail to knot and end. Now that I’ve got a good start on it, I’m enjoying working on it.

Someone on the 123stitch.com message board posted that their Hobby Lobby had most of their kits and some other stuff on clearance 75% off; I checked the one nearest and they did have a lot of their stuff on clearance (the other two did not). The kits are all things that I’d had my eye on for a while, though the Christmas cards are the only ones I have definite plans to do in the near future. The one on the bottom left is Thea Gouverneur’s Dahlia; it was $20 less there than at the other stores, so I got it a little bit cheaper than I should have.

I only worked on one continuing progress this month: Little Blue Book Bag from Freda’s Fancy Stitching. I seem to have decided to push through on this to try to finish at least the central parts of the sides; I’m not sure if I’ll continue on to do the border and finish it as a bag. I forgot to post at the end of February, so this contains a couple of days of March progress as well. And, as I continued, I noticed that two sections of the bargello/straight stitch patterns are the same (the front had one each of those type of patterns); the picture on her website has a different pattern in the two-square vertical section on the right, so that’s coming out and being replaced.

I started a needlepoint project this month: Little Blue Book Bag from Freda’s Fancy Stitching. I’m enjoying working on this; it’s got a ton of different stitches which means that it’s never going to be boring. This is the first time I’ve used stretcher bars; it took me a few tries to get the canvas taut and I still don’t think it’s as taut as it should be.

This month I worked some on 99 by Ink Circles; I worked on 10 bottles (8 full, two partial):

This is a modified version of Boxed In by Beadholden Designs. My first attempt at beading on a loom did not go very well; I pulled out the rows I had done and started over. I enjoyed it much more and hopefully did better at getting the thread in the right place this time.

This is Aluminum Tree by Misty Hill Studio; it’s part of their Mid-Century Modern Christmas collection. It and Ornaments will be Christmas cards for my sisters.

It was mostly straightforward, with no major mistakes or other problems until the end. I did the stars/snowflakes last, with the red ones first; I happened to look at the chart after I started the first grey one and realized I had done the grey stars in red and was starting the red in grey. It wasn’t a major problem; it didn’t really matter which was which color as long as there was one of each color on each side so I left them as they were.

I don’t feel like I stitched that much this month; I’m house-sitting for a few months and haven’t really adjusted all of my routine yet, including a place and time to stitch. I work nights, and I’m mostly sleeping when I was stitching at home; I would nap earlier in the afternoon (if needed) and eat dinner with everyone else and watch TV and stitch after dinner, and now I’m mostly eating earlier and napping later in the day. I did abandon the blackwork project completely for now; I didn’t even bring it with me.

Mostly, I worked on Jupiter from SpaceNavid on Etsy because it’s small and portable and I have the chart printed out, so I take it to my sister’s when I go for dinner and/or TV (no cable here). I do have the charts for the others, though I’ve been working from scans for 99. The other one is small, but it’s for a Christmas card that I don’t want my sister or her family to see before then. I think most of Jupiter’s progress is from this month; I did a couple of stitches in February when I bought the chart and I might have worked on it some in March and forgotten to take a picture of it (I keep it in a tote bag). I’m not entirely sure I centered it correctly, but it will have to do.